In this book the author of No Logo – which focused on the anti-globalisation movement – explores the notion that free market economics needs disaster to progress and that governments as well as corporations worldwide have made use of the shock caused by a crisis – such as 9/11, the Asian tsunami or coup d’états – to advance what Klein refers to as a “fundamentalist form of capitalism”. That is, to push through unpopular economic changes such as the privatisation of schools and hospitals. Via the analogy of electroshock therapy, used by psychiatrists in the past to ‘reboot’ the minds of their patients, Klein charts the historical use of shock therapy to ‘reboot’ countries such as Argentina and Chile and now Iraq. Briefing attended the UK book launch and Klein emphasised that she was not exposing a conspiracy but that she was showing how shock can be used as an economic tool to advance profit-making ideals and the free market.
Published by Penguin Group
558pp, £25, hardcopy
ISBN 978 071 399 8993 www.greenpenguin.co.uk
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